


Just 'Cause You're Right That Don't Mean I'm Wrong

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mentions of Everyone Else in Vox Machina, Spoilers Through Episode 85, What a Week To Start Watching Live
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 18:46:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9780311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: After Scanlan and Kaylie leave Whitestone, some of what Vox Machina says stays with Scanlan.





	

Scanlan doesn’t know where Kaylie is leading him. He thinks he might have asked her, at some point, but the answer has found no purchase in a brain worn down from being dead, then being brought back to life, then full to the brim of anger and resentment and shame. Now he just feels empty, numb, and so very very tired. Still, even for all that, he feels lighter, more free than he has in months, years maybe.

_What haven’t I got figured out that Scanlan has got figured out?_

Vax hadn’t understood, hadn’t seen through the illusion. All he had seen was a funny little gnome who was always ready with a smile, a laugh, a song. Vax had never seen the mask. He had never seen behind it. Scanlan had been grateful for that even as he had resented Vax for never looking beyond the smiling facade he had presented.

_I’ve asked you your age._

Vax hadn’t tried hard enough.

Scanlan keeps his eyes trained on Kaylie’s back, forcing himself to keep moving. He isn’t going to speak up, isn’t going to tell her that he’s tired. When she stops suddenly and turns around, he almost collides with her.

“How’re you keepin’ up, old man?” Kaylie’s tone is neutral, but there’s some emotion in her eyes that Scanlan can’t quite parse. He feels his lips want to spread into an easy smile, the lie about how he’s fine and not to worry about him is bitter in the back of his throat, like bile. The mask he’s used to wearing is so heavy, yet he had reached for it almost immediately. He could put it back on, but Kaylie knew that Scanlan was a liar, that he was no good, that he was weak. He had died, after all.

“I’m tired,” Scanlan finally says, his shoulders slumping with the weight of the truth.

Kaylie gives a short nod, her eyes holding no pity, for which Scanlan is thankful, even if he isn’t sure he trusts it. After all, she is his daughter, and she holds her cards very close to her chest, just like her dad. She has her own mask, and Scanlan wonders if it is just as heavy as his was.

“I heard you had some sort of magical mansion. Probably be better for your old bones than sleepin’ rough would. Didn’t exactly plan for campin’.”

Of course she hadn’t. Vex had gone and fetched Kaylie too quickly for plans or common sense. It would have been better if Kaylie hadn’t known he had died. If the ritual had still worked (he still wasn’t sure if he was glad it had worked or not) he could have gone to her and pretended that everything was fine, that he hadn’t broken his promise. He could have protected her from that truth, that knowledge.

  _Don’t treat her like a fucking sacred object, treat her like a daughter!_

Scanlan makes the mansion without thinking about it, and only later would he realize that he made it with all the original rooms intact, the rooms he had made for the others. Later he would re-make Pike’s old room for Kaylie. Later he would turn Percy’s workshop into a music room.

The table is too big for just two gnomes, and there is too much food. There’s more than chicken, the magic can make a banquet for a hundred people, only having chicken had always just been Scanlan’s joke. As hungry as he is, the food tastes like nothing in his mouth. He watches Kaylie eat instead. She eats like she knows that food might not be there tomorrow, and it hurts his heart to see it. He should have been there for her, and for her mother. He can almost imagine the life he would have had with them, the life where he was a good father and husband and the worst trouble he would have gotten into was the occasional bar fight.

“I’m sorry.” Scanlan hears the words fall out of his mouth like someone else is saying them. He glances up from his plate to see Kaylie pause in her workmanlike demolishing of the food to put her fork down by her plate.

“And what exactly are you apologizin’ for? For dyin’? ‘Cause yeah, I may have been a little upset about that.” She swipes at her eyes and the little bit of moisture that may have gathered there. “It was a stupid thing to make you promise, a child’s wish, and I’m not surprised you weren’t able to keep it.” She shakes her head. “Do you remember the other thin’ I made you promise?”

Scanlan blinks. All he can remember is the part about dying, the part he failed at.

“I made you promise to come back.” Kaylie looks at him, and this time she doesn’t hide her tears. “That was a child’s wish too, the wish I used to make all the time when I was small. I wished for you to come back so we could be a family. Then I got older and wished for you to come back so I could kill you.” She laughs for a second before her face goes sober again. “You came back the other night when I called you, when I played for you. Back from the dead like something out of a tale. You kept the most important part of your promise, Scanlan Shorthalt. You came back.”

There’s more talk after that, more tears. Scanlan goes to his room with Kaylie’s tears drying on his tunic, the feel of her kiss on his forehead, her words of forgiveness ringing in his ears. He feels he doesn’t deserve any of it, and wonders if that’s a lie he’s telling himself right now. He’s always been a very good liar. If Kaylie believes in him, maybe he can believe in himself too.

He sees Pike’s face when he closes his eyes. Out of all the members of Vox Machina, Scanlan thinks Pike might have understood what he was going through the most. She hadn’t said anything to him when he had lashed out at the people who thought they were his friends. She knew what it was like to die and have everything change.

_Hey guys? We’re friends, right? Are we friends?_

Keyleth would understand eventually that she didn’t need him around, none of them did. It was better that he left now, easier.

Scanlan is half asleep when he remembers something, half a dream and half a memory, Grog’s voice singing something that he can’t make out all the words to. It has to be a bit of dream nonsense, but that doesn’t explain why he feels tears form under his eyelids before he falls completely asleep.

The next morning Scanlan feels better. Not great, not fantastic, but better, just a little.

_You’re a shitty person. We know. That’s not the fucking point!_

Percy had been right about one thing. Scanlan was a shitty person. He knew it. He had always known it. He didn’t deserve things like friends. He didn’t deserve having a daughter who loved him. But he’d be damned if he didn’t try to make it up to her now. There was no way he ever could, but he was going to try.

Scanlan smiles as he keeps pace with his daughter, walking under the trees and the sunlight towards whatever came next.

**Author's Note:**

> So last week was the first time, after watching back episodes of Critical Role since October, that I was caught up enough to watch the live stream. What an episode to start watching live on.
> 
> A friend of mine tried and failed (thankfully) to commit suicide many years ago. No one knew he had been having problems. He was the kind of guy who was always ready with a joke and a smile. Afterwards, before he cut ties with most of his friends, he said that all we had known of him was the mask he wore for us. So yeah, I may be a little personally invested in Scanlan Shorthalt. 
> 
> What I got out of Scanlan's breakdown, and Vox Machina's reaction to it, was that Scanlan wasn't exactly wrong in some of what he said... but neither were his friends. Fic title comes from the song "Your Love" by the band The Outfield.


End file.
